


In All Of Our Vices

by metalmeisje



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Blood, Gen, M/M, Minor Character Death, Violence, but not permanent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 07:18:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3438410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metalmeisje/pseuds/metalmeisje
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Exactly what I said. Why do you make us fight?” "Who makes you do anything? I put you in an arena, tell you it’s a fight. But I don’t make you do anything."</p>
            </blockquote>





	In All Of Our Vices

**Author's Note:**

> Me: attempts to finish RP drafts, writes this instead. Welp. About the Games, and what they mean. Or not. It's an origin fic of sorts, about the base foundations of their friendship. Ridge, Xephos, mention of Dew, blood, musings. 
> 
> It’s the Games, what can I say? 
> 
> For Siren.
> 
> (Song is Pompeii by Bastille.)

_and if you close your eyes,_  
 _does it almost feel like_  
 _you’ve been here before?  
_ _how am I gonna be an optimist about this?_

~

In all the insanity that was the games, they’d vowed one thing:

Never each other.

Even if they had to throw themselves off of a high building when they were the only ones left. Even if it meant jumping in front of an arrow that could have easily been avoided, or let themselves fall backwards into a pit of lava with no excuse other than the thing they´d promised each other. 

Even if it hurt, even if their deaths were humiliating; everything was better than being forced to shove a sword through the other’s chest. Despite the fact that they knew, at least while they were here, that no death would be permanent – somehow the memories, half-formed as they were, lingered vaguely in Xephos’ normal life, giving everything a sour aftertaste for days afterwards.

Letting the weightlessness of a deadly fall carry him for the briefest of moments, wishing _praying_ that this time, he would at least break his neck.

Watching an arrow fly through the air, released from a bow with shaky fingers gripping so tightly they looked pale and lifeless, time slowing down until the moment it found its goal and struck flesh, nerves, bone. A heart.

Or watching it fly towards him and letting the stuttering of his heart decide that he’d be too slow today. Again.

Killing your friends was bad enough. Killing your  _Friend_ ;  neither of them could do it. So they’d made a silent promise, even as the clock ticked down for the very first time they were thrown in the arena, that they wouldn’t let it come to that.

Never that. And he thanked the gods that he remembered that promise every time they returned.

Actually, thank the gods for the fact that it rarely came to that, anyway. Even if they didn’t intentionally die some stupid death, it barely ever came down to the two of them facing off against each other. They weren’t good enough fighters for that –

He didn’t allow himself to be.

It made no sense anyway, slaughtering everyone until there was only one person left standing; the only reward the fact that he wouldn’t remember  _everything_. Bloody great reward, that was.

But sometimes, the world – or rather, this particular not-quite-world that was apparently raised from the ground only to be burned down to ashes within days – decides to conspire against him.

Xephos finds himself standing in the middle of a courtyard that felt too new to be real. The tip of his sword tinged crimson drags over the rough stones, and he doesn’t turn around to look at the body that had welcomed the blade so eagerly.

They had all been tired.

His hair hangs in his eyes, wet and heavy, and he runs a hand over his face only to see it come away just as red as everything else seems to be. Alive, but never unscathed. And even the former can be questioned, he thinks with a pang of regret; whatever they give their half-life for here, he’s not sure, but it doesn’t actually count. Couldn’t count.

Except that it does, of course. He just doesn’t understand.

Xephos feels the eyes of Honeydew on him from the platform high above his head, even though he shouldn’t be able to; he can almost hear his friend shouting in his ear with a mixture of anger and fear, accusations wrapped in jokes that had died so suddenly when he slipped and fell. He glances up, just for a moment, and allows his breathing to steady in the aftermath of so much violence.

“You won.”

The sword that Xephos was just about to drop, as soon as he could unclench his fingers, is raised again in one swift movement, the momentum of spinning around in place to face the voice behind him almost enough to knock Xephos off balance. Every muscle in his body aches and he’s not even sure if he’s slept at all; the fighting took so long this time, drawn out until they’d all been convinced they would die of exhaustion rather than a sword or a lava trap. No such mercy, though.

He knows it’s no use to keep his sword up but he can’t bear to drop it again, his heart kick-started into a frantic rhythm, a rumbling sound that makes him wish Ridge would just  _end_ it – so he leaves the tip pointing at the godling, proud that he’s barely shaking even through the pain and sheer fatigue that grip him here at the end of things.

“What do you want me to do?” Xephos asks, unable to keep the accusation from his voice. “A victory dance? I won, and what a great fight it was. I hope it was  _good_ for you.”

Ridge doesn’t answer. At least, not at first. He floats a bit above the ground, the toes of his boots only just grazing the blood-stained ground as if he can’t even be  _bothered_ to pretend to be normal. It takes every last bit of resolve Xephos has not to look away from eyes that burn like suns, their intensity kicked up a notch or two or thousand, the way they always seem to be when they are here.

Xephos scoffs to hide the way Ridge’s presence gets under his skin on moments like these and wonders if he’s stupid. It’s not like talking back will change the way things are; everyone still not-dies and the world keeps spinning until the next time. But he can’t help it, not with the image of Dew’s broken body still burnt on the insides of his eyelids, not with Ridge  _hovering_ in front of him with his head tilted – like he’s hearing a joke that none of them are privy too.

And he  _hates_ that.

“I don’t want you to do anything, dear Xephos,” Ridge says, a little louder than necessary with the overspill of power, his arms spread wide in a gesture that the spaceman assumes mocks every bit of anger that is thrown his way. “You’re done, I just came to congratulate you.”

He should possibly be embarrassed about it, but Xephos growls in response, his own eyes flaring up brightly. If he hates the Games and all the death that they bring with them, slowly wearing away at his patience even if he can’t remember most of it, there’s one thing he hates even more; it’s that he doesn’t understand.

“Oh, fuck you,” Xephos spits out, the anger that runs its course through his veins all over again now he’s faced with the person that set it all in motion, and he takes a sudden step forward to rest a useless blade against Ridge’s neck.

And Ridge doesn’t flinch, of course he doesn’t. Only the light in his eyes changes for the shortest moment, flares up with such intensity that Xephos narrows his own bright blue ones, and after that all he gets is a smile and it makes him choke up in frustration.

“Why-“

 

_“ – what?”_

_That is not the question he’d been expecting, if he’s perfectly honest. Xephos furrows his brow in confusion, letting the silence fill the room before he drops his sword and shakes his head at the demigod on the floor. It makes no sense._

_“Why not finish it?”_

_The man’s voice is soft, almost too soft after falling to the ground – if anything, Xephos expected him to be either mad or very annoyed. It wouldn’t have been the first time the demigod left him suddenly because of reasons that were beyond Xephos. But now he stays where he is, flat on his ass with a hand on his neck where the blade was just moments earlier, and there’s something in his eyes that Xephos can’t place._

_So he just shrugs and holds out the hand not grabbing his sword, laughing his confusion away._

_“I never intended to kill you in the first place, friend.”_

_“You like that word.”_

_Xephos huffs and draws his hand back, more than a little awkward, folding his arms in front of his chest to hide it. Just when he thinks he understands the floating stranger a little better –_

_he really, really doesn’t._

_“And you don’t,” Xephos replies, smiling a little despite himself._

_He watches the man get up without help, brushing off his coat with a gesture that Xephos has seen so many times now, and wonders what is going on behind those golden eyes that he fails to grasp. He knows he tends to ramble a lot while he works because somehow, the floating stranger has decided to listen; but he realizes only now that he knows so little about him. Especially when there is probably so much to be learned._

_He’s mostly learnt not to ask, though._

_With a small smile Xephos puts his sword away, taking the silence for what it’s worth. Whatever it was between them that hung in the air, heavy and full of hesitation, disappears as quickly as it arrived and if he’s honest, he’s more than ready to start fiddling with the tools he’d promised Honeydew he would make. No matter how fun it was, this little distraction. It’s been a while since he was able to raise his sword against anything other than a creeper, and it makes his heart beat a little faster still. Even if it wasn’t a real fight, it was good practise._

_“Ridgedog.”_

_“I’m sorry?”_

_But the space in front of him is empty suddenly, not a trace of the demigod left – apart from a new sword, shiny and new, on his crafting table. It’s not an answer at all._

“Why what, Xephos?”

Ridge still hasn’t moved, the blade is still pressed to the skin above the cloth Ridge always wears around his neck, and Xephos blinks the memory away.

_Even if it wasn’t a real fight._

This isn’t either, but somehow, the realization doesn’t make it any easier. Not with the smell of blood clinging to his clothes and skin, coppery and accusing, and the knowledge that he’s ever so much stuck here unless Ridge says otherwise.

“Never mind, Ridge,” Xephos sighs, dropping the sword to his side in defeat. Even if killing all of his friends seems useless, trying to kill someone who’s immortal might be even more so. The hilt finally slips away from tired fingers and clatters to the ground; and then, there’s nothing.

They are stood like that for seconds that feel like hours, the only sound he can hear the soft crackling of fire somewhere in the distance because someone probably set fire to something; the silent whispers of a gust of wind that has no right to exist here but blows Xephos’ hair in his face anyway. It’s fake, and it’ll be gone so soon, but it leaves its imprints regardless; the soft sigh of a world that only exists temporarily, a thousand questions that not even countless repetitions of the same deadly ritual offer any answers to.

Ridge lets his head fall back a little and Xephos watches him quietly, eyes fixed on the dark and annoyingly  _clean_ fabric of the godling’s coat so he doesn’t have to see the body a few feet behind him. All he can do it wait for a soft hand on his cheek that will make the world fall away from him, now.

To wake up again.

 

_“Why what?”_

_“Exactly what I said. Why do you make us fight?”_

_"Who makes you do anything? I put you in an arena, tell you it’s a fight. But I don’t make you do anything."_

_“I guess that’s true.” Xephos frowns, looks at Ridge and wonders why he can’t look back now. “But why… Initiate it in the first place? We don’t want to fight.”_

_"Then –“_

 

“ – why do it?”

Ridge’s voice jerks him back, but Xephos doesn’t answer. There are no reasons for this, and there is no hand on his cheek and even the wind has made itself scarce; it leaves the two men facing each other in a silence that feels heavier than it should be – even here. Xephos stays quiet, because he knows the conversation by heart now. Remembers every loaded word and the painful void of swerving around answers that he might never get. But it’s… Okay, too. Even when it has no right to be.

His eyes widen just a bit when Ridge touches down, still taller than the spaceman but for once stuck to the same ground that carries the weight of hundreds of footsteps. On even ground, although that doesn’t really matter now. It shouldn’t matter at all, but Xephos relaxes anyway.

“You know the answer to that, Xeph,” Ridge continues, brushing away something invisible from Xephos’ coat and ignoring the way his fingers come away red. “We’ve-“

“Been here before. Yeah, I know.”

He’d intended to sound more harsh, to make sure Ridge knows that what he’s doing  _messes_ with them all, but Xephos can’t muster the energy for it. He just shrugs, feeling the anger drain from him even though he knows he shouldn’t let it. It’s wrong and it’s infuriating and he can’t for the life of him understand why they have to keep coming back here –

Ridge takes a step back and just for a second the ever-present grin wavers, leaving Xephos to deal with the way his heart drops when he sees a flicker of something much older and more tired in Ridge’s expression than he’s come to expect. Somewhere behind the smile and the blazing eyes and the way his friend almost twitches with the excess of power, Xephos catches a glimpse of something he for some reason desperately wants to forget again, because it _hurts_.

It doesn’t last long.

“Ready to go?”

And before he even gets the chance to nod, Xephos finally feels a hand brush over his cheek, and this place of war and death is in the past; even if it clings to him like resin sticks to the soles of his shoes.

 

_“I don’t want you to understand. Never try.”_


End file.
